


the fire inside of us burns

by transvav



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, X-Ray & Vav (Cartoon)
Genre: Gratuitous Rewrite, I made Vav a villain Again!, M/M, Minor Character Death, because everyone goddamn knew I would
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 11:08:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20435000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transvav/pseuds/transvav
Summary: the heroes of the city have fallen, and, for all accounts, the mad king has won. it is with great pride he begins work on his newest project: rewiring and reworking vav into the perfect weapon.things are never as easy as first written, are they?(a rewrite ofwhisper what you want in my ear)





	the fire inside of us burns

**Author's Note:**

> welcome one and all to your local xrav stan have no goddamn impulse control. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> [the original](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4913023)

When someone asked Vav, at the very beginning of his prosperous career as a hero, how he’d gotten started on the path of justice, he’d given a tight smile and locked his lips shut as X-Ray had slung an arm over his shoulder and grinned and beared it, and said everything right.

Vav had imagined being with X-Ray for forever. They were best friends, and they had to be, and they knew what was right and what was wrong. So when Vav had chosen Ash, he’d hoped X-Ray had understood.

But when he went home‒ what he’d thought of as home for years, when X-Ray’s mom had accepted him, when X-Ray had constantly forgiven and helped him for when he messed up‒ there was a box with his name on it, and half of his stuff was pushed in.

“Get out,” Ray said, shoving the box in his arms and throwing Vav’s extra uniform on top. “Get the _fuck _out of my house.”

Now he was alone, and he’d been wrong.

On top of his favorite hoodie on the ratty bed, his phone vibrated. Ash’s picture and name lit up the screen, and something in him twinged and curled as he thought about her again.

Ash was nice, and she was charming and smart, and‒ maybe she’d been right about him needing to talk to X-Ray. But he’d _tried_. The first time he’d gone was for his stuff, yes, because he had been angry, he’d been self righteous. Isn’t this what Ray had _meant_, by doing this greater good? Time healed most wounds, though, and Vav knew where he’d fucked up a couple hours after even doing it. And he wanted to apologize, but X-Ray simply refused to see him. Hilda and Rusty had even shrugged when he’d come by, saying it wasn’t likely Ray would let him in anytime soon, and with that he’d resigned to a motel room a few blocks down the street.

He stared at the phone for a long time, and tried not to think about the fact that he’d been blamed for choosing Ash for other reasons, feeling that feeling twist deeper into knots in the sinking pit of his stomach.

He let the phone keep ringing. He started writing down a text, a message to send to her because he didn’t know what to say. That Ray wouldn’t talk to him? That he’d fucked up beyond repair? That he can’t tell Ray that it was _Gavin_ that should be dead, not‒

He snapped the pen he’d been holding in half. Ink started running down his gloves and he started shaking, dropping the fragments of the pen onto the notepad and struggling to breathe. His phone stopped ringing a while ago, not that he noticed, and he stared down at the slow mess as his brain just. Shut down. He was spiralling again. He _had _to apologize‒ fuck, Ray was the only one who _knew him_‒

Police sirens whirled past and the overbearing tone of the panic shattered, leaving him in a motel room with too thin walls. The next room over had the news on too loud, and the report of the past few days events were playing directly into his ear. Criticisms mocked him, burrowed his way into his ear, and he pushed himself tighter into the little space between the side table and the bed.

His phone vibrated off the mattress and crashed to the floor, and continued buzzing incessantly. He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes before pushing forward and picking it up.

“‘Ello,” he mumbled, bumping his head again the wood of the side table.

“Is he with you?” Hilda’s voice was like nails on a chalkboard in the middle of his breakdown. But she sounded hysteric, almost, if not fucking _pissed_.

“Is _who _with me?” He was not in the mood for this. No name games, Hilda, please, his migraine was big enough as it was.

“Your fucking butt buddy. Can’t find him anywhere, and he won’t pick up his phone. _Apparently _his mom’s going on vacation and left him in charge of the house, and she told us he said to leave us in charge instead. Which includes the electric payments, which, need I add, neither Rusty nor I can fucking pay‒”

Gavin tuned her out, pushing himself up out of his cubbyhole and setting the phone against his shoulder, and going towards the box _lovingly _labeled ‘Shithead’s Stuff’ in Ray’s scrawled handwriting. He pulled things out slowly, Hilda’s rant a background white noise as he shoved his weighted blanket and heat pads out of the way, until‒

Bright green and black at the bottom. The logo they’d drawn together when they were _seven_, with dried out Sharpies and broken pencils.

Gavin _choked_.

Hilda finally stopped and started asking what was wrong. He didn’t know what he told her, but he hung up anyways. He wasn’t even sure he said anything. The world was tunneling and he was _drowning_, unable to breathe. He was gone. Ray was fucking _gone_.

Vav threw his phone against the wall and heard the neighbors go quiet as he slumped back to the floor.

“What did I do?” he whispered, eyes wide and tears streamlining down his cheeks, unchecked. “Oh, _god_, what did I do...”

And Vav was alone.

On catching wind of where X-Ray may have gone, the Mad King had sent Mogar to go find him.

It wasn’t so bad being _alone, _considering Mogar was inept in a lot of the ways the King excelled. Poor english didn’t make for good conversation‒ who _knew_‒ and he’d found it dampered his mood when he had someone who couldn’t understand him around. What a waste of genius, to spend his time with a brute such as Mogar. Nothing was as fun if he didn’t have the chance to be smart. As soon as the hybrid was gone, the King planned to move the cow to an outside facility. If plans went well, he’d need the space, and the reassurance that his upcoming new _partner_ wouldn’t find her.

Vav had disappeared quickly after the City Hall stunt‒ both the heroes had, really, and as soon as the criminals caught on to the fact that the city’s only real protection was gone, things had tilted _quickly_. Really, why didn’t the city have a more competent police force? Things were chaotic, for a good long month, and the month was long enough for two things to happen: Mogar to get on his hunting path for X-Ray, and the Mad King to get on his training plan for Vav.

There was an apartment building he knew to find him at‒ he didn’t bother knocking. Third floor, apartment 34 B.

The door wasn’t locked, and he frowned at the fact before the frown _deepened _as he surveyed the rest of the living area. Layers of dust coated the shelves by the door, a wilting plant near a pair of well-used sneakers long forgotten as seclusion had snuck in. The walls were bare, a creamy off-white color with the occasional smattering of hastily done self-repair paint jobs over messes old and new tenants had made themselves.

In the front room, there was static on the TV at a low volume. All the lights were off and the curtains draw shut, with light emanating from something on the couch that made the shadows shift every once in a while. From the dim light otherwise, he caught the haphazard mess of the living room‒ the trash cans were flowing with scraps of paper, there were a few t-shirts strewn about the floor. On the desk beneath a window were pieces of machinery, as well as a sketchpad and pencils. Tools and extra parts and metal wires all sat in a box on the rolling chair that had been pushed to the side, and a fair amount of scorch marks littered the wall above the area. The king noted, with some amusement, that the fire alarms had been taken apart.

He was well aware of the hero’s little gray areas. All heroes had them, because all _humans _had them. But Vav was a special case, and even without X-Ray’s little slip up in their _session_, the King had known what he was. Who he was.

“You know,” he said, reaching the window above the desk and pulling the curtains open, “I do believe your client expects her commission rather soon.”

He turned to greet the hero‒ _ex-_hero, rather‒ and watched carefully for his reaction, assessing him at the same time. His hair, flat on his head and missing it’s usual bounce, was evidently long enough for him to have to push back out of his eyes with a headband, greasy and unwashed as it looked. His clothes were rumpled and overworn, the sleeves on his shirt rolled up and dark spots across the grey fabric. Vav blinked tiredly in the afternoon light, used to the artificial brightness of his laptop and tablet, bags under his eyes and stains high on his forehead.

He stared blankly up at his guest before his sight wandered down towards the abandoned project on the table and let out a slow sigh. “Yeah, well,” he said, voice heavy with exhaustion. “She shouldn’t have asked for something so complicated within this time frame.”

“You accepted it anyways.”

“I don’t know if you realize this, but I’m _broke_,” Vav mumbled, shoving himself up off the couch. “Hero work didn’t pay all too much in the first place, and thanks to _you_, I’m not even getting paid at all!”

“I think that was your own fault,” the King replied, and Vav let out a slow breath.

“...among other things,” he said, stretching, and grimacing at the sounds of all his bones popping. “So yeah, I accepted some questionable commission times.”

“Well,” the King said, “I applaud you for your tenacity.”

“Thanks, that means _so _bloody much coming from you.”

“I mean it wholeheartedly. I had an idea you were much smarter than you’d ever let on, but finding out _this _is what you did with your time is something else entirely. Imagine my surprise.”

“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Oh, please, it’s your home.”

“Yes, and thank you so much for just coming in unprompted. I love it when guests decide they don’t give a damn one way or another about the person they’re visiting. Waltz right in, why don’t you, help yourself to the oil I keep in the fridge that doesn’t work!”

“Why doesn’t your fridge work?”

“Because I’ve been too bloody damn busy building robot arms for Jon Risinger who wants them automated and fully functioning on their own, but still wants the neural link for backup! Which doesn’t work!”

“Have you tried‒”

“_Yes_,” Vav hissed out. “But damn it all, he’s paying me triple my rent if I manage it by next Tuesday.”

“Mmm. Well, I may have something to help with that.”

“Yes, because I’m so keen on your help right now, after recent events.”

“It’s been a month, Vav.”

“...yeah,” Vav said quietly, glancing over Mad King’s shoulder towards a scrap paper pinned over the desk. He noticed it was a newspaper clipping, weathered and faded, and although the headline was torn away, the picture was clearly of the two heroes in their prime. “It has been, hasn’t it?”

The King pressed his lips into a thin line. _Sentiment_, he sighed internally, and moved to pick up a small piece of tech from the table.

“You clearly already know how to channel your intelligence effectively, but you don’t really have the _space _for it, do you?”

“I’m not proud of what I do. The space doesn’t matter, it just needs to be done.”

“You don’t take pride in your work?”

“I _used _to,” he said, coming over and tapping at the clipping on the wall. “_This,_” he added, gesturing to the desktop, “was never something to be proud of.”

“Well, no, I suppose no one’s _proud _of their indulgences‒”

“It was never about _indulgence_,” Vav finally snapped, shoving the unfinished pieces off the table. “I never _wanted_ to do any of this, I‒”

“You _needed_ to,” the Mad King supplied, pleased with where the conversation was steadily steering. “Creating weapons was your outlet so you wouldn’t _destroy_.”

Vav’s hands were shaking against the table now and he ran one slowly through his hair, leaving streaks of dark grease in the messy blonde mop. Despite himself, the king grinned watching him. Vav didn’t need to be made into anything. He was already a loaded gun, and the Mad King couldn’t wait to pull the trigger.

“You’ve already worked for me,” he started slowly, “not officially, but it wouldn’t be hard to get you on a contract.”

“Don’t,” Vav whispered.

“There’s not a lot of _options_, Vav,” he said, moving closer. “You know the alternatives. I don’t trust you not to get in my way.”

“You don’t trust anything that’s not under your _thumb_,” the ex-hero hissed, digging his nails into his palms, and still, deliberately not looking at his enemy.

“True,” the villain said. “But it’s better that way. You know that.”

Vav finally turned to him sharply, eyes wild in the slow sunset light. The sky was bright orange now, and the Mad King reveled in how _unhinged _his rival looked.

“You’ve always known how I think, Vav,” he said with a slow grin, “because you think that way too.”

Vav closed his eyes, still shaking, and turned away. The king took one of his hands and pressed the little bit of tech he’d been holding into the ex-hero’s calloused palm, wrapping his fingers around it.

“This is brilliance,” he said in a low tone that he knew made people shiver. “What you’ve made shows your potential. And if you had the resources, the space, the help, the time‒ you could do so much _more_. There are things in this world unthought of that you could bring into it. How many machines have you wanted to create, but didn’t have the required pieces, how many _ideas _have you thought up and tossed away because they’d take too much of your space? I have what you need, my _company _has what you need‒”

“I’d be doing it for the wrong reasons.”

“Don’t keep lying to yourself,” the villain insisted. “You never did it for the right reasons.”

“Yes, I _did‒_”

“Then why did you only sell weapons to villains.”

Vav stopped breathing for just a second, but a second was enough, and the King smiled wider, like a shark, as pieces began to fall into place.

“You will always do this. You will _always _be on the wrong side of someone’s history, of their morality. But you have been working on someone else’s values for so long. It’s time to stop asking what they want from you. What do _you _want, Vav? Whose side do you want to be on?”

“My _own_,” Vav said, finally yanking his hand away, but handling the small tech with extreme care before placing it back on the desk. “That’s all I wanted. My own decisions, my own choices. No one to judge or stifle me, what I thought, who I was. Just. A little bit of leeway. A little bit of _freedom_.”

“I can give you that,” the villain whispered. “All of it. You don’t need to be on my _side _to work for me. I don’t want to convince you of right or wrong.”

“You just want my _mind_,” Vav murmured, almost in a trance. “My work.”

“I just need you for your potential. What you can do. A few weapons here and there and the rest is up to you.”

Vav watched out the window as the downtown lights began to flicker into view, more visible with the sun dipping just below the horizon. The Mad King could practically hear the gears whirring in his head as he remembered all his abandoned projects, everything he’d given up due to his circumstances.

“Give me time,” he said finally. “Just a little time. I need‒ I know there’s an ulterior motive, there always _is _with you. I need to justify this to myself.”

“Do the ends outweigh the means?”

“Exactly,” he laughed bitterly. “Is being your _pawn _worth what I’ll receive?”

“Clever boy,” the king hummed, and Vav turned back to him with sharp eyes.

“Well, of course,” Vav said. “Wasn’t that why you wanted me in the first place?”

He felt no disappointment at being figured out so easily‒ Vav was proving a far more capable adversary than before, and a valuable asset beyond what he’d been expecting. The decision would not come quickly to the ex-hero, of course. The _moralities _instilled in him by the people he’d grown up with were ingrained deeply into who he was, his previous image. But there was something so familiar to him that he would have to face eventually. That penchant for chaos, that need for imbalance. Vav was too unpredictable, even with his good intentions. This conversation had proved it. Without X-Ray, Vav would have been an _incredible _villain.

“He really was holding you back quite a bit,” he said, mostly to himself, but just loud enough for the other man to hear it.

That had been the wrong thing to say.

Vav’s mood dropped, and with it, the temperature of the room. He pressed his lips together in thinly veiled cold anger and clenched his fist against the back of the chair, taking a long inhale of breath as he turned back to the window.

“I _think_,” he said tightly, “you should leave.”

“Perhaps I should,” he replied quietly, taking a more civilized approach. Pushing buttons was all in good fun, but this was not the time. “Just know the board will want proof of your work to assess if you’re worthy of hiring.”

“You’ll get your proof if I decide on whether or not I even want your help,” the other hissed. “Now leave. _Please_.” He added as an afterthought, and the Mad King smirked as he turned towards the door. Polite even in his anger.

Just before he closed the door, he turned back to his new _project_. Vav was looking at the clipping once more, clearly lost in thought, his nails digging into his palm as he chewed his bottom lip.

The Mad King smirked‒ this would be a dangerous button to push, and yet he needed to remind the boy. The situation was under _his _control.

“Tick tock, Vav,” he said coyly, and the ex-hero tensed and whipped around to face him, fury in his eyes, as the door slammed shut.

Three days later, the board called him regarding the television personality that had just gone on a rampage.

Quickly, he switched on a broadcast that _wasn’t _from the same channel‒ sure enough, Jon Risinger had finally gone public with his long-standing disenchantment of his job and his bosses, claiming he should have gotten a better placement and lineup, a better _chance_. The reveal did not surprise him‒ he and Jon were on _well enough _terms beforehand, and it came with the business of playing tag with the general government‒ but it caught his attention anyways.

Risinger was walking around like a living version of Doc Ock, robot arms attached neatly to a well-hidden pack on his back, and beyond the two doing his walking for him, the arms seemed to be doing as they pleased to a nearby building as the villain calmly made his requests towards the camera.

The phone rang again, and when he picked it up, he didn’t even have time to ask who it was.

“Consider that my resume,” Vav said‒ and was that with a hint of _smugness_‒ before the phone clicked off.

The king smiled and relaxed into his chair.

He’d need to clear the upper lab out of what's-her-face’s things again, but oh, it was going to be _worth _it.

A few days after that and Vav was in his office, leaning in the doorway looking annoyed already.

“Please,” the King said, gesturing towards a rolling chair off to the side. “Sit. Come closer, too, we need to discuss some things.”

Vav hummed, eyes travelling the office walls as he went and dragged it over, slumping into it and wincing at the squeak of the wheels. “I’m assuming something other than _salary_.”

“Well, yes. You’ll be paid healthily, I assure you that‒ more than Risinger paid you for your recent work. Congratulations on that, by the way. Good craftsmanship.”

“You’ve seen it up close, then,” Vav said, bouncing his legs impatiently.

“Him and I discuss _things_ often, even if he tests my patience. He’ll be excited to see you here, I’m sure.”

“Wonderful,” Vav said dryly.

“No,” the Mad King continued, “I wanted to negotiate the terms of your job here, and what you can expect from working with me. Obviously, I’ll be asking you for specific weapons and inventions‒ you’ll have time limits, but they’ll be flexible and depend entirely on your idea of long it may take you.”

“Considerate.”

“You’ll have full access to the upper lab‒ you’ve been in it, before, but this go around I actually trust you near the equipment.”

“Ah, yes, because a paper contract with my signature in black ink is what gives you complete trust in me.”

“It’s more the idea that you’ll actually know what you’re doing with what’s in there that I trust.”

“I see.”

“I do... mean to ask you, though‒ not that it has anything to do with your position here‒ why _did _you stop being a hero when your other half disappeared?”

Vav took a slow, measured breath and bit the inside of his cheek. “Well first of all, that actually has _everything _to do with my position here, so don’t pull that shit with me.”

“Fair enough.”

“And I stopped because... in no uncertain bloody terms, I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I’ve always taken a defensive sort of position, a road bump in someone’s path. I was really only good for slowing them down, and he had the power to take the criminals and actually _stop _them. I know that was on purpose. We tried it the other way around once, oddly enough, but, ah. Let’s just say there was a reason I deferred mostly to Hil‒ our friend’s equipment instead of making my own.”

“Really?” he asked, intrigued, but Vav sucked in through his teeth and leaned back in the rolling chair.

“Well, you know,” the ex-hero said. “You obviously can already tell what my default would be.”

“X-Ray was your impulse control, in a way,” he pointed out, deliberately saying the other’s name in an effort to pull a new reaction from Vav. It worked. He tensed, digging his nails deep into his palms and taking another long, deep breath. “Your literal morality.”

Vav turned to him with wide, vulnerable eyes, startlingly green in the fluorescents. “And there’s the part I don’t understand.”

“What?”

Vav’s tone of voice had completely shifted as he turned his hands palm up, staring at the marks on his skin that he’d left. It shocked the king enough into a sort of silence, a complete heel turn on how the conversation had previously seemed to have been going. “He’s the one who taught me what _heroism _was. How to be the good guy, what was right and wrong. But I made that choice‒ I made a choice you _forced _me to make‒ and it was for the greater good. It was _right _of me to choose the reporter. It was _right _to choose the civilian, from what he taught me, from what he said.”

“He changed his mind,” the king said. Vav shook his head.

“He wanted me to stay. He‒” Vav took a shaky breath. “He needed me to stay, he didn’t want me to do what was right for the city, he wanted what was right for _him_, and I get that, I get why he was like that, but that’s why he was steering me away from doing for _years_‒ so why the hell was it okay for him to just‒”

Vav broke the armchair off with a loud snap of plastic and hurled it at the doorway, making a resounding crack in the room. He shook in anger for just a bit, and just before the king could stand and get him calm, Vav stopped and turned back to him, stone faced once more. “So _that’s _the only reason I’m here. That’s why I quit, why I didn’t keep going on as _Vav_, as a hero. What he _wanted_ wasn’t right, but I’m... not. It’s not my title to go by, without him.”

“There is no Vav without X-Ray.”

The once hero nodded slowly, picking at the calluses on his palms again and tracing his permanently stained fingertips across the wooden desk. “There never would have been.”

“Then what am I meant to call you instead, if the name has worn out it’s welcome?”

“My actual name, if I can have _yours_.”

He laughed, and stood, holding his hand out to shake.

“Ryan Haywood,” he said, and Vav watched him carefully before reaching out as well.

“Gavin,” his new employee told him, and the two of them shook like professionals.

“Trust me on this, Gavin,” Ryan murmured low, tightening his grasp ever so slightly. “In the things that mattered, I haven’t lied to you. You have a potential unmatched, and I do hope to help you expand your view on the world and on yourself as long as you work for me.”

“Are you quite sure you aren’t my therapist?” Gavin said dryly, but there was a steely look in his eye and a trace of a smile on his lips. There wasn’t any trust between them, yet, and perhaps there never would be, but there was an agreement there. And even if Gavin’s stubbornness proved unbeatable, and the two of them never properly worked well enough together, Ryan would get what he wanted from this. He always did.

A week and a half was long enough for Gavin to get settled.

Ryan left him alone, for that time, and explained to his other employees not to bother him as well. During that time, Gavin would come in early‒ early enough for Ryan to not even see him‒ and disappear into his lab. It was the second floor to the top, and required a key in the elevator to access. Only Ryan and Gavin had that key, of course, but the intercom system had a setting directly for that lab, in case any of the lower scientists needed help from the smartest people in the building, one of which had previously been the purple haired woman that Gavin had befriended (blackmailed) early on.

It was the head scientist’s lab and Ryan shared it, when he felt like getting his hands dirty. It wasn’t a common occurrence, as Ryan’s strengths were more of a psychologically mental variety, and the scientists were always stronger in the physical parts. Gavin was a fun mix of both, Ryan had found in their few discussions.

Even when they had been at odds, Gavin had intrigued Ryan. The younger man was obviously skewed in certain ways. There was a destruction deep in his veins, shining in his eyes, plain in the soot staining his fingertips and the burns and calluses marring his palms. There was a _spark _there, a little ember, wool socks on the carpet in a lightning storm, and Ryan knew it could be a brilliantly bright wildfire with time.

The elevator didn’t play music, but it was soundproof, with good reason. When the door to the lab opened, the dull noise he’d heard through the heavy metal turned to a piercing pitch of a large saw against what he _assumed_ was bulletproof glass. The noise didn’t stop until Ryan stepped further into the dim room, and when the noise stopped, the light flickered and the place went nearly completely pitch black.

“Is all your work done in the dark?” he asked passively, and blinked as Gavin adjusted the light levels back slowly to normal.

“Most of it,” was the reply. Gavin hadn’t gotten a lab coat yet and seemed to making due with an old hoodie, which was _wildly _unsafe, considering the materials he’d been using. But, Ryan figured, he could see the appeal in working right away. “I’ve always kept my habits closer to myself‒ not a secret, but. You know.”

“Mmm,” Ryan hummed. “I need to talk about things with you, now that you’re settled in. What _exactly _your contract entails, and such.”

“Right,” the other said, slumping down into a nearby computer chair. “We, ah. Never got to that, the other day.”

“No.” Amusement colored his tone. “We did not.”

“Yes, well. Feel free to get on with it, then.”

“We’ve clearly gotten the obvious part out of the way,” he said, gesturing around the lab. “Weaponry and machinery is your main objective. I expect you to keep up to date with your works‒ commissions for others are permitted, but your main focus should always be anything the company, or myself, requires from you. You’re also allowed to work on personal projects, and that’s to be expected‒ we allow you your own off hours in the lab, taken into account anything that occurs off company time will not be handled by the company.”

“The usual, then.”

“The usual. In accordance with recent... incidents,” he continued, pausing and glancing over towards Gavin‒ the other was watching him closely, eyes sharp and blazing in warning. “We’ve taken precautions for every employee. Mandatory self-defense training, as well as bodyguards and personal assistants for higher-ups. Yours will be here in a couple of days‒”

“I get bodyguards?” Gavin asked, eyebrow raised. “Didn’t think I’d need ones, with the position I’m actually in.”

“Excuse me?”

“Ryan,” the lad said, and stared him down unflinchingly. “Don’t play _stupid_. It doesn’t suit you like it suits me. I’m allowed to play dumb all I want. It’s what I built my whole image on, but let’s be professional for once.”

He stood and came closer, and despite the height difference between them, Ryan felt‒ no, intimidated wasn’t the right word. But he paid attention.

“I know what you’re expecting of me,” Gavin said, and a chill settled over Ryan. “Isn’t it just easier to say you plan to use me, like you were using Mogar‒ and I do mean _were, _past tense. Where’s your other weapon, your highness?”

“Searching for your best friend,” he spat, and whatever calm there had been remaining sparked into a storm.

Gavin picked up a small baton and whacked at Ryan with it, catching him by surprise and hitting him just against his left side and hitting _hard_. Following that came a long electric shock, and Ryan, knocked backwards into an extra chair, realized he’d been _tased_.

Gavin was seething above him, the baton in his hand still crackling with blue lightning and humming with energy, his knuckles white against the handle.

“I’m doing my _best _to be civil about this,” he said, and his voice was bitingly, eerily calm against the stinging anger in his eyes. “I’m doing my bloody fucking best to pretend like everything’s fine when it isn’t. You _goaded _me into ruining my own life and then came and fucking waltzed right back in and had the audacity to ask me to _work _for you, like you could fix me. Granted, I agreed. _Granted_, I’m right here, and I don’t plan on leaving. But you are pushing me to my fucking limits, and I’m already pretty close to them already.”

Ryan went to stand, but Gavin stepped closer to him, popping his neck.

“My _whole life _I’ve been in the wrong for thinking what I thought. I’ve been told how to act and how to react and what to do and what not to do. And I agreed to work here because you said you wouldn’t say anything on that. And you haven’t, and that’s fine. But if you keep bringing him into it then it’s going to be an issue.”

He turned the baton off, finally, and tossed it towards Ryan as he turned away, stalking back deeper into the lab.

“You can have me as your tool, your weapon, that’s _fine_, I don’t care. But you won’t be able to control me using _him_.”

Ryan looked down at the taser in his lap and finally stood, moving towards the elevator. The lights dimmed again just before the doors closed, and the laser cutter started up again.

He now had a lot more to think about.

The atmosphere between them stayed tense, for a while.

In that time they talked on even terms, a supervisor to employee relationship that often left the room cold and uncomfortable. But things got better with as Gavin began finishing projects, marvels of invention that had Ryan beyond satisfied with his work‒ ray guns and the like, as well as mock-ups of common ‘superpowers’ found in comics and media. Ideas for man made telekinesis and potential invisibility-like camouflage, magnesis and electrokinesis and hologram based shapeshifting. Gavin’s mind was unmatched in many ways‒ Hilda had had her moments, and Ryan, loathe as he was to admit it, had been impressed by the suits she’d created for the heroes when they’d first arrived to her. But Gavin worked on things beyond even _Ryan’s _comprehension. The robotics he’d made for Risinger were incredible pieces of work, on an individual basis, and the neural link had backfired only once, and Gavin was quick to repair it.

When he was paying attention, and acting on his instinct, he was a force unmatched, and Ryan admired that. He loved to watch Gavin at work through the security cameras when he had the time, noting how careful and meticulous the younger man was. He began to try to make it up to Gavin through small conversation over his work‒ their work‒ and it went well enough.

The week his bodyguards arrived, Ryan explained the terms of their contract, and then took them to meet Gavin.

“This is Trevor, and Alfredo.”

Gavin looked up from his blueprints, dark stains on his forehead from failed previous experiments from the start of the day, and brushed his hair out of his face. He stopped chewing on his pen and pointed to each of them with a nod.

“Zedd. Sauce.”

“Cypher,” they both said in unison, before all three seemed to realize what they’d just done on instinct.

“_Shite,_” Ryan heard Gavin whisper before he was mobbed by the two in a round of excited yelling.

“In no uncertain terms,” Gavin said later on, when it was just the two of them again, “I know them from a while back.”

“I guessed as much. Care to define how long ‘a while back’ is?”

“Ten years, give or take. We met in my teens. I was, uh. Sent to a boarding school, by my parents. Four people to a room.”

“Who was your fourth?”

“We‒ um. Uh, we ran him out two weeks in. They never gave us a new one. We were pretty awful,” Gavin laughed, sipping at a cup of tea he kept close. “Uh, we. Had some pretty bad potential records, but my parents were rich and desperate to keep me out of trouble.”

“Any type of specifics you’re willing to share?”

“Oh, naturally,” Gavin said, tilting back in his chair. “We’d sneak out of the dorms at dusk and just cause general bloody chaos, as you do. And I didn’t feel _bad _about it. Never great, but not bad. The lads always liked to up the stakes, goad each other into more and more. Grafitting turned into breaking and entering turned into more and more. And it wasn’t always great, but the rush we got from running was almost worth it.”

“You’re destructive.”

“You knew that, though.”

“Of course.”

“Hmm,” Ryan hummed, turning towards an unfinished contract. “Why don’t you tell me about some of your escapades?”

“Having second doubts about hiring them, then?”

“More like my extensive background check wasn’t extensive enough, and I want to know how much trouble the three of you can get into.”

“Oh, love,” Gavin snickered, and Ryan felt his heart skip a little at the nickname falling so easily from Gavin’s mouth. “It was a _time_.”

“Go on then,” Ryan said, and began to work as Gavin started his story.

Ryan had to pause halfway through, however, engrossed in the lad’s tale. It wasn’t so much the story Gavin was telling, but how he was telling it, energized and enthusiastic, interrupting himself often to laugh as he remembered extra details. Gavin’s delight was nearly tangible, his eyes bright, but faraway in his memories. He’d been away from X-Ray, then, free from any restrictions his friend may have placed on him. These, Ryan realized, were the years Gavin finally realized what he was _comfortable _doing. Somewhere along this line was the event that made X-Ray _over_protective, and overcontrolling, and clinging to hope that Gavin could have been good.

But the way Gavin remembered what he’d been doing‒ trickery and chaos, freedom and destruction. He’d been _happy _in it, and Ryan realized he still was. His grin was wide and true, sharp eyes shining with glee. Ryan couldn’t stop watching him.

He couldn’t stop wanting.

Recognition hit him like a truck.

_Sentiment_, he understood, and tried his best to look away.

Trevor and Alfredo came to his training sessions, which took place when Ryan was busy in his office.

Gavin appreciated the company, even if they _were _like his brothers, and they tended to take that role too seriously. He wasn’t incredibly strong, and he knew that. For most of his heroism, he’d relied on his agility and flexibility to keep him out of any tight situations. He’d _also _relied on his partner for that, but, for better or for worse, he couldn’t keep waiting for someone to be at his side.

But did they _have _to make fun of him every time he hit the mat?

“C’mon, Gav!” Trevor mocked as he pushed himself up again while Alfredo giggled into his hand. Like he was trying to cover it up, but not. “Thought you were a hero! How the hell did you save anyone like that?”

“You keep bloody bringing that up, and I’m gonna ring your friggin’ neck, Trev.”

“I don’t‒ I don’t think you could!” Alfredo said through his laughter, and set himself and Trevor off again.

Gavin sighed and finished standing, rubbing at where his neck and shoulder met to will away the soreness. The hired lackey watched him carefully, knowing the fight wasn’t over until Gavin stepped off the mat himself, or until the boss came in, but Gavin knew he’d been instructed to go at _Gavin’s _pace, so not as to seriously hurt him.

_Best not to break the boss’s new toy_, he’d overheard a few of the hired hands say amongst themselves. The lower scientists had laughed along, unaware that he’d been so close.

But they weren’t wrong.

Gavin moved forward with his first swing, losing himself in both the strategic movement and his thoughts. He knew what he was in this company, what his position was. He was, really, Ryan’s _pet_, a weapon, a new shiny tool to use against anyone that opposed him. And that was fine, really. It was just fine.

Except, he thought, feeling his nose get hit and blood trickle out, and hearing the ‘twins’ snicker behind him as he staggered back‒

Wasn’t that what _Ray _had done?

Ray, he realized as he wiped his arm across his face, had used him in a similar way. Perhaps without realizing it, but he’d done it all the same. Gavin had been used as Ray’s tool for justice, a way to reassure that he was in the right. And Hilda, too, he registered, twisting away from his trainer’s next hit. Hilda has used him as an experiment, a theory in motion.

All his life, people had used him. So what was _one fucking more._

The man he was fighting groaned as something cracked and he fell against the floor, grasping at his side, his face twisted in pain, and Gavin paused, tilting his head as he tried to remember what he’d done.

Punch, dodge, evade, nosebleed‒ something, something‒ kick to the front.

He’d...

“Dude,” Alfredo said quietly. “You broke his rib.”

“Rib_s_,” Trevor added. “Nice job. What pissed you off?”

Gavin thought about it. It wasn’t the idea that Ryan had used him. It was the idea that everyone else had. It was the idea that he’d been used his whole life by people who he’d trusted, people he loved. He hadn’t trusted the Mad King at all, and was expecting being _used_.

“Nothing too bad,” he finally answered, sniffling and wiping at his bloody nose. “Someone grab me another trainer. And get this guy out. Idiot should’ve seen that coming from miles away.”

Three months into Gavin’s employment, Ryan dropped by one of his sessions.

Lately, Gavin had been breaking a lot of bones, and a lot of wills. Alfredo had lectured him after that first incident not to fight angry, and he _hadn’t _been. After recognizing what he’d been so mad about, he learned to move on. Mostly. After that, he’d actually been taking notes on how his opponents were trying to fight him and matching them like mirrors after a while. Taking a few hits was worth it. Know your enemy to know yourself, and all that jazz.

Gavin was fighting a bodyguard of another board member the time Ryan came by. There was no need to impress him, of course, and Gavin _knew _that, but...

He smirked to himself as he cracked his neck. Why not show off a little?

After he tied his hair back, he stepped forward onto the matt, and the opponent‒ Evan, his name was‒ rushed him. They met in the middle.

It was a nightmare. It was _brilliant_. Gavin had never been one for physicality, but there was something supercharged in this fight that kept him on his toes. Evan threw a couple punches, and Gavin threw some of his own, but at one point, the other man went a little too slowly, and Gavin was able to trap and catch his arm. Evan stilled, startled, and Gavin felt his grin grow despite the split lip he’d gained somewhere along the way.

He twisted Evan’s arm around the wrong way until the man buckled to his knees to try to loosen the stress of it. As he collapsed, Gavin stepped on the back of his leg, keeping him down, as he twisted further and _pulled_. Evan’s arm cracked as his shoulder popped from its socket, and he grunted, collapsing forward. Gavin backed up a couple paces to let him up‒ the fight wasn’t over until one of them passed out, now‒ and as he waited, his gaze flicked over to where Ryan was _supposedly _doing paperwork.

The man was watching him sharply, blue eyes steady on him. Their stares met, and Ryan tilted his head in a little nod. Gavin grinned, blood in his teeth, and turned back to where Evan had finished pushing himself up.

Gavin let out a slow breath.

Evan rushed forward again, dislocated arm tucked in his shirt to keep it from getting hurt any further, but it wouldn’t matter. Gavin knelt down and slammed his elbow upwards, catching Evan’s nose in his swing and hearing a satisfying _crack_, blood immediately dripping from the poor bastard’s face as he stumbled back and fell, dazed and unmoving for the time being.

Gavin relaxed, the adrenaline draining away as he stood panting on the mat. Everyone else stood in silence, shocked at the takedown, all for Trevor and Alfredo, who were grinning wider than anything‒

And Ryan, who took a long, slow sip of his drink, smiling at Gavin behind his mug, proud, smug, and... something else.

Gavin took another breath.

Another month passed. Half a year since the end of X-Ray and Vav, and‒

“Mogar _still _hasn’t come back, love,” Gavin said offhandedly, attaching another circuit to the board. “Where did you send him, anyways?”

“I sent him to find‒” Ryan cut himself off, pausing his work to look over at Gavin, who didn’t even glance up.

“I’m assuming that’s gone rather well.”

“Well, he never came _back_, so I don’t know.”

“Let’s be honest, did you need him to come back at all?”

“I would have, yes. At one point.”

“Didn’t trust me to be strong enough to protect you?” Gavin asked, finally glancing over, grease smeared around his eyes. Ryan swallowed.

“Not then, I didn’t. Not at first.”

“Fair enough.” Gavin winked, and went back to working. “Seriously, though, he probably should’ve been back at this point. What held him up, d’you think?”

“Maybe he couldn’t find him.”

“Doubtful. X-Ray couldn’t evade his mother dragging him to church on Sundays, much less an actual living hunter with the _literal _abilities of a bear, including scent and strength.”

Beyond a small twitch in his neck, Gavin hadn’t reacted poorly to the mention of his once friend. Progress. Progress was good.

“Yes, well. Who knows.”

“Is it possible he found his mom?”

“I‒” Ryan paused, and in a moment, Gavin did too, glancing back up again. “Perhaps. Give me a moment.”

He stood and left Gavin to his devices, stepping away into a hidden stairway that lead to his office. He took the stairs slowly, at first, but reality started to dawn on him. It was possible. It was _possible_. He’d never had the chance to completely finish his plan‒ things had deteriorated in ways he hadn’t expected, but it had worked out nicely despite that‒ and the cow had gone mostly unused.

He reached for the intercom and called down to one of his lab assistants. “Could you check something for me, Dalton?”

The assistant made an affirmation and moved towards the room with the trapdoor. He made sure that Ryan was watching before he hit the switch‒ and froze.

Because it was empty.

“No need to fret, Dalton,” Ryan said tiredly, knowing that the poor employee was probably shitting himself thinking he would be thrown to the dogs over this‒ the dogs being _Gavin_, of course. Training with the head scientist was becoming Ryan’s favorite punishment for moronic fools who went against his instruction. “This one is not on your head.”

He turned the camera off, and Gavin slipped into the room, closing the door behind him. Ryan turned in his chair to look at him.

In his long black lab coat, he looked‒ well. He looked _good, _plain and simple, a sort of superiority he made work for him. Vav had never been one to take the spotlight, and Gavin wasn’t either, but he made himself _known_, and Ryan pressed his lips together to keep himself focused.

“So, the cow’s gone, then?”

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“You didn’t hide her _very _well. Mogar is a living tracking device searching for a singular living being, and he was _in _the building.”

Ryan stood and held his hand out, preparing to summon his crown, before Gavin grabbed his wrist and stopped him, pushing it back down onto the table. “What are you _doing_? I need to go after him before he comes‒”

“And what then?” Gavin shot back. “Will you persuade him that, oh, you had _no idea_ she was there, what a coincidence? What have you got to lord over him now that she’s gone, what kind of power do you plan on keeping him tied to you with? He doesn’t want money, he doesn’t want power or fame or recognition. He doesn’t want to be accepted or forgiven and he’s _barely _got any mind to be twisted.”

Gavin let go of Ryan’s wrist, but kept his gaze as he stepped back. “And beyond that, how long could it take you to find him? Weeks? Another six months? Ryan, you’ve got _no _guarantee that you’ll be able to find him at all. You’ve still got a company to run‒”

“I have _you‒_”

“‒and despite your trust in me, I can’t run it properly for you. The board will lose interest in him, and has no faith in me quite yet. I’m still your _pet_, at best, to them.”

“They don’t call you that,” he growled, and Gavin reached up to smack him upside the head.

“They _do_, and that’s fine. Let them underestimate me, see how well it goes. But I can’t run your company while you’re off on a fruitless chase for _nothing _at all. Mogar has no reason to be here anymore, and you have plenty of reasons to stay.”

Ryan almost asked _like what_. He knew what he wanted the answer to be.

But Gavin was right, and he sat down and leaned back, rubbing at his temples. “When did you become my voice of reason?”

“When you started getting too stupid for your own bloody good,” Gavin laughed, and slipped back into the stairway.

Ryan watched him go, taking slow, measured breaths. He was right. He often _was, _nowadays. He leaned back and tried to think about the newest warmth blossoming in his chest.

“Oh, _good_,” he said to himself. Mogar being gone would have been an issue, early on, but not anymore. He wasn’t the biggest loss. And with that realization came another.

He wanted this city to be his, yes, completely and utterly his, but it was getting to the point where he didn’t simply want to use Gavin. The idea that his other employees and the board thought of Gavin as simply a tool, a pet, was so foreign and unwanted that it repulsed him at this point.

No, Ryan wanted to rule the city‒ and perhaps more‒ with Gavin. And not with him like he’d promised Mogar. Truly and utterly with him, by his side, completely together, power they shared with each other evenly. But part of him knew it was impossible. The two of them were getting along, for now, but there was no inclination that Gavin would ever feel such a way after everything Ryan had done, as much as they trusted each other now.

Ryan shoved his affections down like he always had done and got back to his paperwork, ignoring the shake in his hand and the heaviness in his heart.

Gavin was out of projects.

He tapped his pen against the desk impatiently, waiting for something to come through, knowing that nothing ever would, not for a while. There’d been movement, lately, underground‒ Ryan had been trying to brush it off, which meant it was an actual problem. But still, Gavin had been basically put on _pause_.

Which no one should have ever done, he thought to himself, catching a certain cluster of notes pinned to the wall in his gaze. He leaned over and tore them down, reading them over to himself before a slow, boiling curiosity and need for _knowing _began to overtake him. Setting them down, he stood, slipping on his coat and flicking on the call systems to the lower labs.

“Trevor,” Gavin called over the intercom, eyeing an untouched cabinet to the side, “have poison control on standby.”

“Yeah, sure thing boss‒ wait, what‒”

“Don’t think too deep on it,” he told him, pulling his hair back again. “I’m just getting into some new fields of study.”

“Oh, god,” was the distant reply before the com shut off.

He got up and unlocked the doors, swinging them wide open and grinning at the wide variety of potentially lethal chemicals. “Well,” he said to himself, grabbing his goggles from the side. “Let’s see what I can do with _you, _shall we?”

Ryan noted Gavin’s slow descent.

He knew it wasn’t safe to keep things from the younger lad‒ it certainly wasn’t good for their partnership, and Gavin got restless easily. But one of the bots had picked up traces of people moving around and he knew it’d be better to take it from his mind.

Taking his commissions off the line was... probably not a great idea, though.

Trevor and Alfredo both swore up and down he hadn’t told them what he was doing, beyond whatever vague comment he’d told Trevor about poison control, which was no great assurance.

He’d passed by Gavin exiting the bathroom, sweaty and pale, shaking and wiping his mouth. He’d nod, and Gavin would smile, and immediately disappear back into the lab, turning on his do not disturb sign as he began something new in his lab.

Ryan knew better than to ask, and Gavin no longer _needed_ self defense lessons, so it wasn’t his place to bother him. Except worry was starting to build, and now he was getting uneasy. For whatever was coming, he needed Gavin at top shape.

So he slipped into the lab despite the sign, searching among the equipment for‒ _there _he was.

“What have you been up to?” he asked, coming over towards his scientist, who startled where he stood, sweat dripping down the back of his neck before looking up towards Ryan with a small smile.

“Been messin’ with chemistry.”

There was a large mess of glass vials and tubes against another wall, tongs and liquids and various containers labelled and disorganized, stains across the table and burn marks up the wall. Ryan pursed his lips at the sight and noticed Gavin’s shaking hands on his welding torch.

“I can... see that.”

“Wanna see what I’ve done?”

Something about the way that Gavin’s grin grew made Ryan hesitate in saying yes. It was one thing when that grin was directed at a piece of machinery he’d perfected after weeks, or trainers he’d defeated too easily because they’d made assumptions and been wrong. When it was about something he’d done for _himself_, off hours, especially with _chemicals_‒

“Maybe, ah. You should explain it first.”

“Oh, sure!”

Gavin stood excitedly and pushed his chair aside, nearly sprinting across the room to his desk that Ryan noted was completely covered in written chemical solutions, equations and diagrams, stained and charred and scribbled a thousand times over in different inks.

“So I was thinking about it a lot. Self-defense is all well and good but like, superpowers are _fun_. Not that I’m going back to slow-motion, god knows that's a faulty science, and I can mess with the idea of time and any sort of relativity and such with that at a later time, and that’ll be a whole _‘nother _bloody circus, which is exciting to think about‒”

“Yes, well,” Ryan interrupted with thinly veiled panic, “Maybe not for a little while?”

“Oh, never anything that’ll put us in any direct danger, probably,” Gavin grinned up at him again from the papers, tapping one specifically. “The diagrams don’t think so anyways, but, yes, not for quite a while. We’ll need a _ton _of metallic chromium, and that’s expensive, trust me‒ anyways!”

_Lord help me,_ Ryan thought to himself.

“I got thinking, yes, superpowers, bloody brilliant things they are. Did some research, led myself to obtaining a phosphorus isotope, _please _don’t ask how much it cost, I billed the company because yes, this is a company business, I’m doing it to. Better myself to protect you, help you take over the city or something or whatever it’s the company’s problem and cost now. Isotope. Very flammable. Deadly as fuck to humans. How do I ingest it without dying? Not easily, took a lot of experiments. Did most of them to myself‒”

“You _what_‒”

“Don’t worry about it, love, I’m alive and breathing just fine! Used an ingestible organohalogen compound I made for myself‒ lord, I’ll have to bloody make a borax solution for a suit, hm‒”

“Gavin. Darling. Can you explain it a _little _simpler, for the very tired, very out-of-it businessman who is not in scientist brain right now?”

Gavin looked up at him again, green eyes blazing, and now, in the brighter lighting, Ryan could see sparks of yellow and gold flickering in his irises, giving him a wild look he hadn’t had before.

“In very simple terms, lovely Ryan,” he said, grin growing, and he held his hand up between them. “I am now able to safely, and of my own volition, spontaneously combust.”

And then, naturally, he did.

Ryan held him in the bathroom afterwards as he threw up, rubbing his back as he hung over the toilet shaking.

“The formula isn’t perfect, as you can see‒” he cut himself off, coughing, and Ryan sighed.

“We have _lab rats _for this. Perfectly good morons willing to take anything you made.”

Gavin finally leaned back, rubbing at his face, and leaned into Ryan as he took a deep, slow breath. “What’s the fun in that?” he asked, giggling to himself.

“For arguably one of the smartest people in the world, you’re a moron,” Ryan told him, brushing a few stray strands of hair back into place. “Come along, then. I’ll take you back home where you can recover for a few days, or at least until I can make an antidote.”

“No antidotes,” Gavin mumbled, struggling to his feet with Ryan’s help. “I want this to work. I _need _this to work.”

“You don’t need powers to prove yourself, you know.”

“Not to you, maybe, but. It’ll be good.”

He stumbled over his own feet and Ryan sighed before lifting him in his arms. Gavin gave nothing but a little squeak of surprise before simply curling closer and making pained noises.

By the time they were down to the underground garage, Gavin was asleep in his arms, too hot to the touch. Ryan laid him down in the passenger seat of his car and turned on the air conditioning, brushing his hair from his forehead again and letting his fingers linger on his forehead to feel his temperature.

“You’re burning‒ ah, bad choice of words,” he laughed to himself, wiping the sweat off his fingers before pulling his car from the lot and driving out, careful not to hit too many bumps along the way.

He took him up to his apartment, noting the equipment still littering the table in the kitchen area along with scorch marks on the walls. The place wasn’t well decorated, seeing as how Gavin spent most of his time at the lab, but there were still touches of personality around, and after he placed the lad back in bed, he lingered in the hallway to observe.

Pictures, pinned and framed, were all stacked along the wall. A few were obviously family photos, from Gavin’s younger days‒ a couple of children and what Ryan assumed had once been their parents, as most of them had their faces missing, or just bent away. Gavin had _siblings_, then, at least two. Further along were photos from what he assumed was Gavin’s time at the boarding school, with Alfredo and Trevor in a few of them, but with a fourth person bent out of sight at the side. Ryan pulled the photo away and unfolded it, and sighed.

X-Ray was the fourth person, naturally, and he folded it back and put it up again, scanning the hall as he started to leave‒ highlights of Vav’s hero career were limited, now, probably tucked away into a box up in his closet for him to ignore. But the newspaper from their first save was still up, and Ryan let his gaze linger for just a little longer, before finally starting to the door.

Just as he reached it, there came a distant, weak call of his name, and, like magnetism, he went right back.

Gavin curled himself tighter into his blankets, and as Ryan went to pull them away to keep him cool, he reached up and held his cheek.

Time seemed to slow down. Gavin’s eyes were half-closed, his hair plastered to his forehead, and he was shuddering uncontrollable, but his hand seemed steady on Ryan’s face, too hot to be comfortable, but Ryan _would not move it_.

“Stay?” Gavin murmured, and Ryan nodded slowly, finally reaching up to cover Gavin’s hand with his own.

“I’ll... get you some ice water.”

“And tea?”

Ryan laughed, low and soft, reluctantly pulling away. “And tea.”

A couple days later, Gavin was feeling mostly fine again.

“This time,” Ryan told him, dabbing his forehead with a wet washcloth, “let’s test the new solution on someone _else_.”

“It worked out fine!” Gavin whined, taking the cloth and wiping his face with it. “I just miscalculated how poorly it’d affect me. It just. Needed to settle into my system more.”

“Well, let’s test it on someone expendable first before you try again so we don’t trigger another reaction on _you_.”

“I’m not expendable?” Gavin joked, but when Ryan tightened his fist against the couch, Gavin backtracked. “Kidding, kidding.”

Ryan took the cloth back and got it wet again, trying to ignore the deep guilt in his chest over what had been a stupid little quip. After a second, Gavin pushed himself up off the couch and came to stand closer, bumping shoulders with the older man. He was still overly warm, but the two of them had figured it was a part of the serum, raising his internal temperature to withstand the flames he’d created for himself. Unlike a few days ago, the heat was no longer searing. Instead, it reminded Ryan of a hearth in winter, warm without burning.

“You don’t actually mean that, right?” Ryan eventually asked, and felt Gavin’s glowing gaze turn to him. “About being expendable. I’d like to think I’ve done my best to prove you’re anything but.”

Gavin sighed, turning to lean against the counter, running a hand through his hair. It was just past shoulder-length now, tangled from a few days of not moving around much, and his fingers got caught in the knots before he just twisted them out.

“Ryan, you’ve done... so much for me. I didn’t know how this would work out, at first‒ I was too upset with myself, and what I’d been told my whole life, for anything to really matter. And truth be told, I’m still _guilty _over some of this. I’m not sure if I will ever be over it, entirely. And in the beginning, it was easy to blame _you _over myself. Because you were the obvious catalyst, in my eyes. But after spending all this time, with you, doing what I’m good at and what I _love_, I realized it was never you. You were what I needed, for so long.”

Gavin shifted closer, and Ryan turned to meet him. The two of them were nearly touching now. “So _no_, I don’t think I’m expendable. You’ve more than proved me wrong otherwise. You’re probably one of the only people in the world who really make me feel needed at all.”

Ryan wanted to say something. Anything, really.

But the moment was broken before anything else _could _be said. His phone went off, and a quick check confirmed it was the board, angry at him for taking time off.

“Seems I was right about you never being able to leave,” Gavin remarked, but he was smiling when Ryan looked back.

“Don’t come back to work until you’re better.”

“No promises, love, god knows I’m reckless.”

Ryan almost looked back as he drove away.

_Sentiment._

Gavin, in his apartment, left scorching handprints on his wall.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he murmured, and felt smoke escape between his clenched teeth. “Bloody fucking idiot moron.”

The tea went cold on the counter as he started work on projects once again.

The forest and the city were separated by a heavy flowing river‒ not deep, but quick enough for it to be dangerous, a moat around the newly owned castle that was the metropolis he so sorely missed. In the cover of late summer night, the two of them stood at the highway bridge, rarely busy. Most people who moved here didn’t really move out.

“C’mon,” he said, and they started their way across.

The night wasn’t cold, not this late in August, but it wasn’t as hot as it could have been. The winds were biting warm, and, not for the first time since leaving, he regretted leaving behind the self-regulating hoodie he’d been given for his birthday just before. He dug his nails deeper into his palms. His companion, noting this, shifted his gait and walked a little stronger, and a little closer.

“I’m fine. Just. Anxious about fixing this.”

The taller of the two grunted, and they continued on.

At the edge of the bridge, right where the city limits officially started, was a ladder that lead down to the edge of the river, a little concrete wall where the water splashed up and churned unhappily. Under the bridge, the two of them met up with the third, who nodded in greeting, before opening a door into an underground tunnel. The three of them walked the mazes of the tunnels beneath the city, hyper aware of every drone and bot that watched the corners and entrances.

“He’s preparing for us.”

“You have no idea,” their guide mumbled, and brought them into their final door.

Their fourth was waiting there, sitting at a makeshift table filled with scraps, and her companion hovered nervously near her. “Thank _christ_,” she said, getting up and smacking him over the head. “You worried the shit out of us. Glad to see you’re alright.”

“Yeah, alright’s not the word I’d use, but, uh. Thanks. What’ve you got‒ is he‒”

“I don’t know,” she said, slumping deeper into her chair. “I only got in contact with him once, six months ago. Right after you _left_.”

“I made some bad decisions,” he said. “I realize that. I was in the wrong, not him, not this time. I just...”

“You were being childish,” she scolded him, but shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He just kind of vanished. We thought we found him in an apartment a few blocks from the hotel he’d been in, but when we got there, the place was empty. Owner said he’d never seen him move in or out.”

“Fine. What about the Mad King?”

“Larger than life,” their guide said, taking a slow swig from his flask. “Got the whole city under his thumb like that, thanks to all the new tech and toys. My contacts said he has a new head scientist‒”

“That _fuck_,” the woman whispered to herself.

“‒who’s in charge of building it all for him. Apparently, the new guy’s also his bodyguard, after the King’s _first _pet didn’t come back.”

The tallest man growled low in his throat, but his companion calmed him with a hand to his arm.

“His control isn’t absolute,” she said, tapping her fingers on a messy map of the city. “We don’t know when he’s planning to strike, but we’ve set up a base down here to prepare for the worst.”

“We need to figure out his plans anyways. I don’t want that risk. And we’re going to need to find‒”

“I already found him.”

The visitor’s guide shrunk back as all eyes turned to him, but he sighed, and cast his gaze to the ground. “My contacts‒ they worked as bodyguards for some of the board in the Mad King’s company. Apparently, that new technician’s needed personal training for the role he’s being paid to play. Started with low level hires off the street and started going into the higher-ups, the ones that could actually fight. My contact? Came back to me with a shattered leg and two broken ribs. That scientist is a fucking force to be reckoned with.”

“What does he have to do with this?”

Their host went quiet and he gripped his fists tighter. “No. No _fucking _way.”

“Facial ID confirms it,” the older man said quietly. “It was him.”

“He wouldn’t‒ he promised, he said he _wouldn’t_‒”

“Things can change,” the woman told him, but he shook his head violently.

“No, that was a promise we fuckin’ swore by. He’s being mind controlled, or brainwashed or some shit. Something’s wrong.”

An unsteady silence fell between the four of them. No one believed it, but no one wanted to contest it.

“So let’s make a plan and get it right for once. Break in, sway the public, whatever we gotta do. We kick some royal ass, and we get Gavin‒ we get my _brother_ back,” Ray exclaimed. Mogar nodded in approval behind him.

Hilda and Rusty shared a long suffering look, but nodded in agreement. “Let’s start.”

Gavin didn’t _need _the physical training anymore, but that didn’t mean he was ready for a sort of ‘public trial’ with Ryan quite yet. There was one more thing that had to be done.

After the serum was perfected, and Gavin, at the cost of a few human lab rats, was able to control his own pyrokinesis without getting violently ill, the two of them reached an agreement that he was safe enough to go back to work.

“One last thing,” Ryan told him as they began to leave the building for the day. “I wanted to take you to a meeting next week‒”

“Show me off a bit?”

“Shiny and new,” he shot back, and Gavin giggled. “But there’s one final test I want you to go through before I can properly show you off.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Ryan said, and pressed the button for the training floor. Gavin’s eyes grew wide.

“There’s no one else to beat.”

“Correct.”

“I already proved to be stronger than my _bodyguards, _Ryan, who do you expect me to‒”

Ryan shifted where he stood, starting to unbutton his jacket, and Gavin’s eyes went even larger. “Oh _no._”

“Oh, yes, dear.”

“Bloody fuck, Ryan...”

Gavin worried his lip the rest of the way down, pointedly avoiding eye contact as the floors went past and his knuckles began to tense. The temperature in the elevator began to rise, in time, and Ryan chose not to say anything, instead putting a hand on Gavin’s shoulder in an attempt to placate him.

“There’ll be no one else here,” he told him. “Just you and I and the mat.”

“I don’t trust myself not to hurt you.”

“_I _trust you.”

Gavin gave a tight lipped smile and shrugged as the two of them stepped into the room. Ryan dropped his jacket and toed his shoes off as well while Gavin peeled off his own lab coat and untied his high tops at the other end of the room. He was pouring sweat as he pulled out his hair tie and retied it, higher up and tighter, and the two of them stepped onto the mat together.

Gavin let out a breath.

The two of them met in the middle, Gavin with his fists already reaching for the hit, but Ryan had his arms up to block it, predictably enough. Gavin brought up a knee and cracked upwards, towards Ryan’s ribs, and at the last second kicked outwards. Ryan caught his leg and twisted it, and Gavin relaxed into it, flipping down onto the mat with the momentum and landing on his back. Ryan moved to pin him down with a foot on the chest, and Gavin rolled out of the way, smoke trickling from the corners of his mouth as he fought to control himself.

_Oh_, he realized, and then grinned, pushing himself upwards and catching Ryan’s downward swinging arm. As the fight went on, he thought more on what they were doing. It wasn’t proving himself physically‒ he’d done that enough with the broken bones he’d given to the best fighters in their little ring. It was proving that he could get his new powers under control, and he quickly deduced. His emotions heightened his heat. The angrier he was, the more anxious, any elevation in heart rate beyond a certain point, and he’d rise in temperature, making the air around him unbearable and, eventually, unintentionally lighting himself ablaze. If he didn’t pay _attention_, he put his boss at risk.

“You know, love,” he panted out, letting Ryan catch and pull his arms behind his back, making him arch up and into Ryan just behind him. “If you wanted to be fireproof, you could have just asked.”

He heard his partner’s little chuckle before feeling one of the hands disappear, replaced by a hooked arm that pulled him even closer, nearly flush against his chest. The arm Ryan had moved now curled up and around his neck and he gagged, feeling his windpipe close with the pressure on his throat. Thinking quickly, he stomped downwards onto Ryan’s foot and whirled when the older man let go, taking his elbow and striking just hard enough to make him stumble. He finished by catching his ankle from behind, and Ryan slammed down onto the mat on his back, letting out a grunt when Gavin fell forward and effectively pinned him down on his chest.

There was a long, drawn out moment, the two of them taking the time to come down from their high before Gavin started laughing, slightly crazed, victorious and delighted. Ryan started laughing too, a deep, rumbling chuckle that Gavin could feel when he leant forward and rested his head in the crook of the other man’s shoulder. Eventually, the laughter died down and Gavin rolled off, still a little breathless.

And then, after just a second, Ryan rolled on top of him, and the atmosphere hung heavy on the both of them for just a little too long.

Gavin took a breath, and surged forward.

When their lips met, Ryan seemed to freeze above him, and Gavin began to doubt in turn, but it was only for a second before Ryan began to kiss him back like his life depended on it. He felt his temperature rise, but Ryan seemed to ignore it, deepening the kiss before breaking apart as Gavin grinned up at him breathless.

“What have you done to me?” Ryan murmured, leaning down and pressing kisses high on the younger man’s neck, and Gavin giggled high, his grip tightening.

“You’re one to talk,” he said, reaching up to Ryan’s hair to pull him closer. “You’ve ruined me, you know?”

“Oh, not yet I haven’t,” Ryan said, in that low rumble of his, and Gavin’s heart jumped in excitement, pounding harder at the tone. “I’ve yet to even start, but you’ll get what you deserve.”

“Promise?”

Ryan growled, biting harder, and pushed Gavin down into the mat further. “Just you wait, darling.”

“Hurry up, my liege.”

“Oh, my love, anything for _you_.”

And later, when the night wound down, both of them in the same bed, Ryan curled around him protectively playing with his hair, rolling it between his fingers, Gavin tucked into his chest, he realized he felt quite the same.

If Ryan asked it of him, he would do anything. Come to his side and fight for him, fight _with _him. Gavin nuzzled closer with slow, measured breath, and fell asleep safely.

Ryan woke up in the morning and realized he was dripping with sweat. Maybe, he realized, sleeping in the same bed as a living furnace wasn’t the best idea, with covers in the middle of summer.

Carefully, he untangled himself from Gavin, pressing a kiss to his forehead and putting pants on before slipping out of the room and closing the door quietly behind him.

He moved into the kitchen, beginning the raid of the fridge, and reveled in the late morning start. Saturdays were his one day off, and while Ryan was the type of man to adore his work, it was always good to be home. This day was better, because of Gavin, but the house, although large, had never felt empty before this.

He was halfway through the first batch of pancakes when the reason _why _came running out.

“It’s seven in the morning,” Ryan said, and turned towards the island.

Kerry jumped up onto the tall chair, laying on his stomach with his legs kicking off the side as he tried to push himself up all the way. When he finally managed, he readjusted his towel cape and grinned wide up at Ryan, already reaching for his orange juice. “And it’s _also _Saturday!”

“So you wake up early on all Saturdays?”

“It’s the only day I _see _you, Dad,” Kerry crowed, and Ryan laughed, albeit a little sadly.

He did want to see his son more often‒ part of him was hoping that he could start spending more time away from the company, once Gavin proved himself to the board and was able to take partial control. Kerry was one of the few things that brought him true joy, and that list had always been mostly violent. As much as Ryan would vehemently deny it, to love someone was, inherently, human. Who he loved was not his weakness because unlike others, he knew how to protect that one person. To have someone to care so deeply for was important‒ it kept a value to a person.

And now, Ryan thought, turning back to the stove with a smile, he had _two_.

He only knew Gavin had come out by the gasp that Kerry made, full of shock and awe. It was just a matter of time before‒

“_Vav!”_

Ryan looked over his shoulder to see his son launch himself towards the ex-hero. Before, he would have worried that Gavin wouldn’t have made the catch, but the training he’d undergone allowed him to easily snatch Kerry up in his arms safely, shifting to hold Kerry up with stability.

“Hi, DF,” Gavin said, clearly confused and yet utterly pleased. “Care to, uh? _Explaaaainnnn_?”

Kerry pointed towards Ryan, who shuffled the fully cooked eggs onto a nearby plate. “That’s my dad.”

“Alright!” Gavin replied with the tone of someone who understood nothing, but was really trying his best to pretend he did. “Cool and _great_.”

“Kerry,” Ryan said, sensing the impending onslaught. “Eat your breakfast, and get dressed. We’ll talk more about it after you come back from the activity camp, okay?”

Kerry slumped down in Gavin’s arms, but nodded, letting him drop him onto his chair in front of the eggs and bacon.

Gavin turned to Ryan with a _look_, but Ryan only held a hand up. So Gavin shrugged‒ and the movement pulled Ryan’s gaze to Gavin’s shoulders, barely holding up the t-shirt swamping his figure, which made Ryan swallow with the realization that that was _his _shirt‒ and slid into the chair next to Kerry at the counter, resting his chin in his hand and listening as Kerry began his story for the morning.

Ryan paid attention with one ear as he continued to cook his own, and, by extension, Gavin’s breakfast, smiling at his son’s extravagant tale.

“So, Kerry,” Gavin said once the boy was gone.

“You two have met before, I know that much.”

“Well, yes,” Gavin paused to take long sip of tea, and seemed to get a faraway look in his eye. “It was actually just before, uh. You got involved.”

Ryan inhaled through his teeth. “But you _do _know him, so why the shock?”

“Well he didn’t exactly say anything about him being your _dad_, you know?”

“No, I’d expect he wouldn’t, with the way you two did meet‒ wanting to be a hero, but having a villain for a father, it’s not something he’d really advertise.”

“Mmm,” Gavin said. “he’s a good kid either way.”

“Well, he learned it from watching you,” Ryan said offhandedly, but noticed from the corner of his eye how Gavin stiffened.

“I’m not‒ oh. He did?”

“You and your friend, yes. He knew from a very young age that he wanted to be a superhero, but you two made that dream become real for him. You were actual heroes, for a bit there, and he admired that.”

“I can’t do that for him anymore,” Gavin murmured. “What will he think when he learns that I was never really a hero?”

“He’ll understand,” Ryan tried to reason, but Gavin only shook his head.

“He called me _Vav_. And it...”

And Ryan couldn’t really say anything about that, could he.

He pulled Gavin close and pressed a kiss to his temple, resting his chin on top of his head and taking a long, long breath. The sunlight rose higher in the windows, bathing the kitchen in uncomfortable brightness. “C’mon,” he murmured. “Let’s... go back to bed. Get some rest before my meeting later.”

“What kind of meeting is it?” Gavin asked, placing the now-empty mug in the sink and sliding close to Ryan’s side as they made their way back to the master bedroom.

“The usual. Mostly your... old commissioners, people in the same business as I am.”

“What d’you all need _meetings _for?”

“I don’t always know,” Ryan mumbled, tugging Gavin into a hug. The younger man made a surprised little squeak, and Ryan pulled him down onto the bed, tucking his face into the lad’s neck with a pleased hum. “Usually useless shit.”

Gavin struggled one of his arms out and grabbed at his phone. “I’ll set you an alarm for your _shit _meeting.”

“Thank you, darling, you’ve earned yourself a chance to come with me.” “Oh, wonderful.” He set his phone back down and pressed further into Ryan’s warmth. “Is that‒ will I be alright being there?”

“You’ll be fine,” Ryan said, already feeling sleep drag him down. “You’ll be just fine.”

The meetings droned. They always did.

Gavin stood at Ryan’s side, fiddling loosely with his coat sleeve, and just behind _him_, on either side, stood the twins, shifting and whispering to each other with sharp smiles towards those who gave them dirty looks.

At Ryan’s insistence, Gavin had worn a surgical-type mask over the bottom of his face, and kept his goggles on‒ it was cliche, but comfortable, and a nice, if not ominous, way to keep himself disguised from the other villains scattered about the room. There were eyes on him at all times, despite Ryan’s open warning.

“The rogues gallery of this and many other cities,” Trevor hummed in his left ear, eyes darting around the room. Alfredo made a low noise of agreement, gesturing subtly towards various persons.

“Diemond, of course, a familiar face to you.”

“And Risinger, as well. _Great _job on those robot parts, by the way, Gav.”

“Speaking of which, promise to make me something too, when you can? For the old days?”

“Far left of the room is Nova. Said to be heir to an older mafia type empire. She’s _great_. Little bit of a bully, but then again, here, who _isn’t_?”

“There’s Ice Blue‒”

“The Reaper‒”

“Screecher, they’re _fun_‒”

“Moon Monster! And‒”

“Siren’s missing, odd enough...”

“There are rumors that Haywood’s got a little sister in the same business. Wonder if she’s here...?”

“Oh, Meg? Gav would _love _Meg.”

“Not _Meg_, she never comes here. Not Mica either.”

“Don’t spread rumors,” Ryan said, quietly enough for only them to hear. “And the both of you _do _realize that Gavin’s met most of these people before, right?”

“Not just met,” Gavin laughed to himself, “I did work for most of them.”

“Yeah, well,” Trevor said, leaning his head on Gavin’s shoulder, “You should meet them more _properly_.”

“On the right side of things,” Alfredo added, and Gavin only pressed his lips together in answer. “You should’ve come home with us back then, Gav.”

“Maybe,” Gavin replied tightly, and the twins backed off pretty quickly after that.

“You alright?” Ryan murmured, and noted how Gavin’s fists were clenching and unclenching slowly.

“I... will be fine,” Gavin eventually said back with a small grimace. “Just. Never really been great with this _many _people.”

“You seemed fine in the spandex.”

“Well, yes, because you could clearly see my ass in those, and people tended to look at that more than anything.”

“I won’t deny I’m guilty of it.”

“You were never really subtle.”

“Watching my eyes often, back then?”

“Well, you never looked away from _me_, and I was taught that it’s polite to keep eye contact in conversation.”

“Boys.”

Both of them straightened up at Trevor’s warning tone, finally realizing there was someone coming their way. Risinger was not slow in any way upon his extra arms, and Ryan noticed Gavin brimming with something like pride at the fact that his creations made very little sound, for their size. The television star stopped just in front of them, grinning widely as he let himself be lowered back down to a more reasonable height.

“Good afternoon, Mad King.”

“Hello, Risinger,” Ryan said with a long suffering tone, and Risinger’s smile seemed to get wider.

“Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, you know him,” he said, bristling with his own pride now. “You’re wearing his work right now.”

There was a pause as the statement registered, and then Jon turned to Gavin with wide, bright eyes. “You’re a wonder, Cypher, truly.”

“Seems I’ve done well enough,” Gavin said, his accent gone for the moment.

“Oh, _more _than that,” Jon praised, reaching out to shake Gavin’s hand. “This is impeccable. Everything’s perfect, exactly how I’d wanted‒ and you’ve got the credibility among the rest of our little group to prove you’re worth the price.”

“Well, I’m glad everyone’s pleased with the results.”

“Risinger,” Ryan interrupted. “You came over with a purpose, and it wasn’t to butter up my head scientist.”

“Ah, so you _did _snatch him up.”

“Jon.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, and waved a couple more people over, most of whom Gavin recognized as being rogues he’d fought before. “From what we can tell, all of us, there’s... a group. Underground, moving against _you _in particular. There are rumors going around that it’s very specifically some heroes we’re all well too familiar with.”

Ryan let out a long, slow breath, trying to not let Gavin’s sudden stare get to him too much. “Rumors are rumors for reasons, are they not?”

“Yes,” someone new interrupted, “and they’re often based on semblances of truth.”

Everyone glanced over. The newcomer gave a little flourish of his hand and a mocking little curtsey, bow in hand and a sickening smile spreading across his face. Most of the group seemed to shift towards Ryan, instantly glancing away, but Ryan himself only gave a long suffering sigh.

“Mark Nutt,” he started, and struggled to keep a straight face as Gavin’s defensive stance dropped a little bit to bring a hand to his face like he was trying to stifle a laugh, and truly, Ryan couldn’t blame him. “How kind of you to arrive.”

“Don’t sugar coat things, your highness,” the archer said, toying with his drawstring. “You’re avoiding the subject.”

“Am I?”

“Mad King. You promised those _pests _would be out for good, when you were done with them.”

“They _are_,” Ryan hissed.

“So, then, it _isn’t _X-Ray living underneath your city, crawling in your sewers like a rat with his friends, waiting for a moment to ruin you once again?”

Gavin had tensed once more and the twins had backed from him even further. Trevor’s forehead had a slight sheen of sweat to it. Ryan turned his head just enough to hear his neck pop. “I’d tread carefully, Nutt.”

“Your claims to the city are long past out of date, Mad King,” the other man ignored him, already lost in his angry spiel. “It’s high time you were taken off your _pedestal_. If these morons really are back, then you obviously haven’t been willing to do your _part_.”

Faster than Ryan could blink, Nutt had an arrow notched, his bow drawn.

“Someone’s going to step up, your _majesty_, and I have all the experience I need in order to‒”

Something crackled to life beside him, flaring up brightly and curling heat around him. Nutt’s bow disintegrated in his hands‒ and then his hands began to disintegrate _with _it, skin turning to ash in mere seconds, embers crawling up his veins. The room watched in silent horror as Nutt stood, frozen with utter shock, not even _screaming_, choking on the sound as the flame slowly climbed up his arms.

Gavin stepped forward, his goggles crackling under the heat, fire lighting up his fingertips. With every step he took towards Nutt, the other man burned brighter and faster. Gavin grabbed him by his neck and dragged him closer, cinders spreading out from where his palm was wrapped, and pulled Nutt close enough to whisper something in his ear.

When he pushed Nutt forwards, the archer was gone, ashes scattering into the air. His arrows clattered to the ground, uncomfortably loud in the silence, and no one even dared to breathe.

“Go home,” Ryan hissed. “All of you, leave.”

They did, and quickly. The second the door shut behind the last person, Gavin stumbled backwards, fumbling with his goggles and mask. He threw the goggles to the side and they shattered as he fell to all fours on the ground, taking deep, unsteady breaths that shook as he choked on his own breath.

“Damn, Gav,” Trevor whispered.

Ryan knelt down and pet Gavin’s hair back, tying it a little looser to lessen any pressure. “Hey,” he soothed quietly, “you alright? You gonna be sick?”

“Ryan,” Gavin whispered eventually, “please don’t.”

His eyes were wide and unfocused, tear tracks on his cheeks, and Ryan realized that any illness Gavin may have been feeling wasn’t from overexertion.

“Oh,” Ryan murmured, slow recognition dawning. “Oh, Gavin, I’m so sorry.”

As brilliant as Gavin was‒ destructive and intelligent, creative and incredible as he was‒ he wasn’t prepared for this. He’d still been bent out of shape from what he’d been fighting with himself on for so long, barely comfortable in his own self, in what he was happier doing, twisted from his old friend’s insistence on keeping a crystal clear outlook on his actions.

And he’d just killed someone.

“Let’s just,” Ryan took a slow breath, slowly petting Gavin’s back. “Let’s just go home, okay?”

Gavin hiccuped and pressed his lips together, screwing his eyes shut. The twins helped him to stand once he’d regained a more steady breath, and Ryan took him into his side, pressing a kiss to his head as he lead him to the stairwell and down to the car.

Gavin spent the night in the guest bedroom.

The last Ryan saw of him, just before midnight, he was in a fitful sleep, tangled in the comforters and drenched in sweat, a bowl to the side of the bed, thankfully still clean, the glass on the nightstand completely empty. He’d been mumbling something in his sleep, and though the words were unintelligible, Ryan could tell how tormented they were. His subconscious was literally tearing him apart.

Ryan sat in his home office with the lights dimmed and rubbed at his temples. The layout of the underground tunnels and sewer systems were strewn about his desk, red ink marking up potential hide outs and where X-Ray and the others could have been hiding. The nearest place possible was just beneath city hall‒ no doubt where the group had hidden during the Corpirate’s key to the city stunt. Ryan paused to make a note to steal that for later on, but for the moment, it wasn’t the priority.

If X-Ray and the others made their move now, there was a chance they’d win. It’d be difficult, no doubt. Ryan hadn’t spent this long building up his kingdom to lose it so easily. And with Gavin out of the picture for the moment, the victory would be empty. Yes, Ryan loved Gavin‒ more than he could ever say‒ but that didn’t change the fact that the both of them agreed on. Gavin was Ryan’s prize, a living weapon and trophy, to lord over X-Ray when the time came. His _Vav_, swayed and conquered by the greatest enemy the two of them had ever faced, fighting on the villain’s side, loyal and unwavering in his new life.

Ryan wanted to relish in that. The look on X-Ray’s face when he realized he’d failed his brother once again. Been left alone because of a choice he’d made for himself. And Gavin, upon hearing this, had agreed.

Gavin knew what he was, in the eyes of the employees, of the board, of the society of rogues across the cities. And Gavin was okay with that, because he knew what he was to _Ryan_, and only that was important.

Ryan hummed, tapping his fingers impatiently. No, X-Ray making a stand now wouldn’t do. Gavin had a process to go through, things he had yet to realize about himself, and what he’d chosen. Ryan could only help with that so much. For now?

He opened his laptop and sent out a message. No one was making any waves in the water just yet.

Gavin showed himself again about a week later.

“Is it true?” he asked, and Ryan jumped, finding him at the doorway. “Is it really him?”

“...yes.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“You knew he was coming.”

“I meant when were you going to tell me he was _already here_, Ryan.”

Ryan met Gavin’s eyes. The younger man looked exhausted, eyes red-rimmed with heavy bags, hair in a messy low bun. Gold ringed hazel green. Ryan breathed slow. “Until I was _sure_.”

Gavin sighed, wiping at his nose with his free hand before wrapping his hands around his mug again and swallowing hard. “Uh, I. Need to get my stuff out the apartment. All of it.”

“Yeah, there shouldn’t be much left.”

“It’s just. He, um. He knows where it is, we need to‒ I left him a note when I, uh, left, I just‒ he knows. Where it is, and I just‒”

Gavin sniffed, rubbing at his eyes, and slumped back against the wall. Ryan peeled off his jacket and stood, coming closer, and put his hand on Gavin’s shoulder. “Of course. It won’t be hard, we’ll do it tonight. I’ll have the twins go over, is that okay?”

Gavin nodded, taking a long swig of his drink. He was tenser than anything and refused to meet Ryan’s eyes.

“Talk to me, please,” Ryan murmured. “Kerry’s worried. _I’m _worried.”

“What am I doing, Ryan?” Gavin asked, so, so tired. “What the bloody _fuck_ am I doing?”

“What’s best for you.”

“Is it?” he mumbled. “Is killing someone what’s best for me?”

“Gavin?”

“I still can’t get over what Kerry said when he first saw me a month ago. He called me Vav. Like that was still a part of me, and yeah, it is, but I just.”

“Darling.”

“How many people am I disappointing, like this? Are my parents proud?”

“I thought you’d come to terms with this.”

“I did! I am! But I didn’t expect to be _killing _people! I don’t‒ it’s not even the fact that I killed him, Ryan, it’s not the fact that I’m the one who did it, that his _ashes _are in the creases of my gloves, that people watched me do it, that Trevor sounded so fucking _proud_.”

“Gavin‒”

“It’s that I didn’t feel _anything_, Ryan! I didn’t feel a goddamn thing! I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t think twice, I didn’t regret a single moment! I watched him burn, I made him burn, and I fucking didn’t _care_! I never cared!” He was crying now, tears steaming as they rolled onto his cheeks, the ceramic mug in his hand cracking. “Ryan, I swear to god, I was fucking‒”

“Happy,” Ryan said gently. “You... enjoyed killing.”

Gavin stopped, suddenly, realizing it at the same time, to its full extent. And then he started shaking. Ryan began to sweat.

“What the fuck am I doing,” he sobbed. “What am I _doing, _Ryan, what’s _wrong _with me‒”

“Gavin‒”

“I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have done this, I shouldn’t have met you or said yes or fought with Ray, I should’ve said _sorry_, I should’ve been better, I should’ve done _more_!”

“_Gavin!_”

The mug shattered, and boiling tea splashed down onto the hardwood floor, and Ryan risked it, reaching outwards to grasp at his shoulders. “Gavin, _please_!”

The scientist crumpled forward and Ryan was so glad he’d taken the burn proof serum they’d made, feeling heat lick at him as he pulled Gavin closer into his chest. “I’m _sorry_. I’m sorry you realized this, I’m sorry you ever had to understand that. But better now than never. And there is only one thing I have to ask you‒ are you happy, here? With or without me?”

“Of course,” Gavin whispered, face buried in Ryan’s shirt. “I’ve never been happier in my entire...”

He trailed off as he understood. Ryan pressed a kiss to the top of his head, feeling the room cool down slowly. “I know it’s not what you want to hear. And I know it’s not something you’re proud of. But my darling, I’m proud of _you._ It may never get easier. It may haunt you forever, but I will always be here for you, no matter what. And know this‒”

Ryan pulled back and tilted Gavin’s chin up, meeting his eyes, and Gavin was struck with something so strongly. He remembered so distinctly the Mad King‒ the man who’d laughed at torture, twisted words behind glass, someone he’d thought of as his enemy, his nightmare, a horror that he’d fought. And this was that man, yes, but it _wasn’t_. Like a light switch, or a coin, there was the King and there was Ryan, his Ryan, who called him smart and cared for him and knew him better than anyone in the world. And Gavin smiled.

“If they don’t accept you for who you are? If they force change upon you whenever they can, make you conform to what they want out of you? Then they never cared about you.”

Gavin breathed out.

“Take your time,” Ryan told him, and kissed him slow. “I’ll be here, for you, always.”

“And if he comes sooner than you’d hope?”

“We’ll figure it out if it comes.”

“Okay,” Gavin whispered, and finally relaxed completely. “Okay.”

And it did come.

Only a week after that happened, too. Gavin had been spending more time with Kerry, away from the lab, and it had helped, when Gavin had explained he was done being a hero, when Kerry had said something incredibly profound.

“That’s okay,” the young boy had said, designing a new costume for himself that Gavin knew he’d eventually make reality. “You don’t have to be a hero to be _someone’s _hero. Dad’s a villain, and I know that. But he’s still one of my heroes. I still look up to him.”

Ryan smiled to himself in the kitchen upon hearing that. Gavin sat back on his heels and watched Kerry continue drawing. And then Ryan got a phone call.

“Jon.”

“He’s out.”

Ryan dropped his spatula. It clattered loudly against the pan and fell to the floor, and Gavin turned around, eyes wide. Kerry looked up, too, and Gavin focused on him again, patting him on the head as he stood, moving towards his lover. Ryan held up a hand.

“Where.”

Jon swallowed. “Front of city hall. You were right, they were underneath it‒ they kept moving. Knew the ways around us. Made their own paths and lost us. We couldn’t‒”

“Stop,” Ryan growled. “I’ve heard enough. Is he on?”

“Every channel.”

“Good. _Keep _him there.”

The phone clicked off. Ryan turned, and Gavin watched him carefully, taking a deep breath when Ryan wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“He’s here, isn’t he?”

“...yes.”

“Go to your room, Kerry.”

The boy complied, giving Gavin’s hand a squeeze before running off down the hall. Ryan came over and switched the television on, switching between channels, and sure enough‒

Gavin rested his head on Ryan’s shoulder.

Bright green and black. The logo they’d drawn together when they were seven, with dried out Sharpies and broken pencils. Mogar stood at the side, Hilda and Rusty and Ash with them too. Reporters clambered around the podium, and Ray, for once in his life, wasn’t smiling for the cameras.

_“I took a leave of absence,” _he said. “_That was a mistake on my part, but I’m back now, and I’m here to put the city back the way it was._”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Gavin murmured, and Ryan bit back a smile.

_“Is Vav dead, X-Ray? Why haven’t we seen him since the incident half a year ago?”_

_“No, Vav isn’t dead. I know where he is. I plan on bringing him back to get his help in restoring the city. But I need to finish one thing first‒ the Mad King must be taken down. This is an official challenge, asshole, I know you’re watching! Tomorrow. City hall.”_

Ryan looked down to Gavin, who kept his eyes on the screen, even as the camera pulled away. He was shaking ever so slightly, but his temperature seemed fine.

“Are you ready?” Ryan asked him quietly, and the younger man chewed his lip.

“No,” Gavin said after a few seconds. And then he straightened up. “But maybe I never will be.”

He reached up and tied his hair back, keeping his breathing steady as he did. When he was done, he looked down to his open palms and lit them ablaze before turning to nod with a grin at Ryan.

“Let’s do it.”

The city hall’s large windows let the setting sun in, dust dancing in the rays of light. The place seemed haunting when empty, the mayor having fled in a panic when the first sight of danger had appeared in the form of the twins. Gavin paced restlessly in the shadows, his footsteps echoing around the large entrance hall. Ryan stood comfortably and patiently as time ticked slowly by, the shadows getting longer with every passing second.

And then, the door burst open. Two figures stood silhouetted against the sunlight, a mass of reporters and flashing red and blue clamouring just behind, desperate to watch and join the fight.

The door slammed behind them. X-Ray jumped at the sound.

“Fuck _me_,” he whispered, before shaking his head and standing tall. “Alright. Your time in the sandbox is over, Mad King.”

“Interesting analogy, X-Ray,” the Mad King said, stepping forward. “Would you like to build your own sandcastles again? I’ll knock them over in time.”

“I don’t like that you continued it, I’ll be honest‒ that’s _not _what I came here for!”

“You don’t want the city back then?”

“What? No‒ for fuck’s sake. We’re here to save the city, yes, but that’s not _all _we’re here for!”

“Oh?”

“Where’s Vav?” X-Ray finally got to the point, and the Mad King could hear Mogar’s knuckles crack.

“What makes you think I have him?”

“Facial recognition software. We _saw him_ in your offices.”

“Even if that was true‒ because from what I hear, your _software_ was nothing but a homeless man’s contact‒ what makes you want him _back_?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought he betrayed you. I thought he left you to die, chose someone over you. I thought you’d made it clear you didn’t want him anymore.”

“I made a mistake,” X-Ray said. “Vav is my brother, my best friend. I shouldn’t have abandoned him like he’d abandoned me. He’d done the right thing. I was just too selfish to see it back then.”

“Why’d it take you so long to return, then?”

“I... had other things to take care of. To sort out before I was ready to come back to heroics.”

“Like what?”

“It doesn’t _matter_,” X-Ray snapped. “I wouldn’t tell you anyways. _Where’s. Vav._”

“Don’t fret, X-Ray,” the Mad King said in a mockery of a soothing tone. “Your Vav is right here.”

Gavin stepped out from the shadows and Ryan couldn’t help but grin as he came to stand beside him, mimicking his stance. “‘Lo, X-Ray.”

“Vav...” the hero said, eyes wide and vulnerable for just a second. Next to him, Mogar tensed, eyes narrowing.

“Not quite,” the King interrupted, smiling wider. “You see, after you left, your ‘_brother’ _had a change of heart.”

“Bullshit he did,” X-Ray hissed. “You mind controlled him, you fuck.”

“Don’t be so hasty, X-Ray,” Gavin said, rolling his neck. “You and I both know this was inevitable.”

“Nothing was _inevitable_. You were doing the right thing, you were a _good _guy, you _are _the good guy! This isn’t‒”

“This isn’t _what_, Ray.” Gavin cut him off, and Ryan caught glimpses of glowing sparks rise on the back of his neck. “Isn’t me? Or isn’t the _me _you wanted? The _me _you designed, the _me_ you shaped into what you needed for your own success?”

“What?” X-Ray said, taking a step back. “No‒ what are you talking‒”

“Let’s face facts, Ray, I am _not _the good guy. I never have been. And you knew that and you fucking tried your bloody best to force me into it anyways‒ did you know I was selling weapons behind your back to our enemies the entire time? Did you know, late at night, I’d draw up plans to steal from jewelry stores that would never see the light of day? Did you know that I hated myself for _years _because I thought everything I was doing was wrong, because you made me believe no one would love me if I fucking did the _one thing _I was ever fucking good at?”

Ray took another step back‒ and now Mogar did too, as he reached for his sword, and it was only when Gavin took his step forward that Ryan saw why. Flames curled up his arms like snakes, leaving smoked steps on the carpet as he walked. Molten light left cracked lines up his cheeks, on his palms and neck, and left his eyes _burning_.

“For the love of _god, _Vav‒”

“I’m _not! Vav!_” Gavin hissed, and the carpet beneath him began to go up in flames even faster.

“Then who,” Mogar growled, his sword out and pointed cautiously towards the ex-hero.

Gavin paused, tilting his head curiously, and if he hadn’t looked like living flame, it would have been endearing. Ryan loved it anyways.

“Personally,” he said, a lot more calmly, “I was thinking Cinder would do just fine.”

“Cinder it is,” the Mad King said. “Now, darling. Our guests, if you’d please?”

Gavin turned back to the heroes. Ray looked so upset, doing his best to put on a straight face, and Mogar was unwavering in his anger, like always. And for a moment, Gavin almost felt regretful.

And then he dropped his coat and lit himself further ablaze. “With pleasure, your majesty.”

He darted forward and ended up clashing against Mogar, who managed to push him across the room before roaring, and chasing after him. The two ended up in a mass of sparks and light, and Ryan watched for a few moments as X-Ray ran up to throw his own punch. Ryan caught his fist, twisting his arm, and grinned.

“Fucking let him go, you bastard,” X-Ray growled, and the King only laughed.

“He’s free to leave as he pleases,” the King said, stepping out of the way of X-Ray second fist and striking towards his ribs. “I’m not holding him hostage, you know.”

“Bullshit you aren’t,” X-Ray said. He wrenched his hand out of his hold and started advancing quicker. Ryan dodged every punch. “He wouldn’t do this.”

“Oh, yes he would, and you and I both know it. You made him make his choice, and he made it _on his own_. He needed this, Raymond,” Ryan laughed, and the hero made an outraged scream.

The ground shook as Mogar struck downwards at the ground, and Gavin easily dodged the expanding crack, taking the chance to throw flames into it towards Mogar. The bear man grunted, throwing his arms up to protect himself from the heat and light, and Gavin turned with intent towards X-Ray, who realized the elder villain had already backed away.

“Wait,” he said, stumbling back. “Gavin, no‒ this isn’t _you_‒”

“I’m _sorry_,” Cinder said simply. “But it is.”

Gavin felt the burn before he saw it and grasped at his chest as he was thrown backwards by the force of the blast. Mogar roared in protest, abandoning his attack as he dashed over back to his partner to inspect the injury.

“Do not move too much,” the bear man said, lifting the hero in his arms. “You need serious help.”

“But‒”

“Shh. It’s not worth it. We’ll...”

And he looked back towards the villains, who watched him impassively, but the message was clear. “We can’t stay here, anymore.”

Within a blink, Mogar sprinted out the doors, and the two of them heard the crowd burst into screams and questions. Gavin looked to Ryan for his next course of action, and Ryan simply waved him off.

“They won’t be coming back,” he said. “Not for some time.”

He came close and tucked up Gavin’s mask, running his thumbs over the bright lines running along his face with a smile. Gavin’s eyes crinkled up as he smiled back before tugging his goggles back down and lifting Ryan’s hand to press a kiss to the back of it.

The two of them stepped out into the setting sunlight and Gavin admired how the sunset, reflected off the windows of the office buildings in downtown, make it look like a city on fire. The crowds below looked up at them in fear, unsure of their fate, and as the Mad King returned to his usual powerful stance, Gavin stepped forward, gesturing with one hand towards the older villain.

“I believe,” Cinder said, a grin curling beneath his mask, “the proper way to address your king is by _kneeling_.”

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr](http://transvav.tumblr.com)  
leave a comment here! yell at me there or don't i don't really care. the comment is. the most important part of course.  



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